DAYS OF FEAR, TURMOIL STILL VIVID AFTER 5 YEARS

The microscopic anthrax spores that arrived in Boca Raton five years ago through the mail left an indelible mark on the psyche of this community.

For a disparate group of people whose world was turned upside down in the chaotic days after the attacks, it was a life-changing event.

Many worked for American Media Inc., the publisher of supermarket tabloids such as the National Enquirer, Weekly World News and Globe, at its former headquarters, 5401 Broken Sound Blvd. in the Arvida Park of Commerce.

Others, such as government officials, responded to the first wave of anthrax attacks that killed Bob Stevens, a photo editor. He died five years ago today. Nationally, the anthrax attacks killed four others and sickened 17, including Ernesto Blanco, an AMI mailroom worker.

"Anytime you go through something like that, your life has to change," Blanco said in a recent interview. "I almost died."

Still, it was the loss of Stevens that struck him and many others most.

"I don't know why it had to be him," Blanco said.

Cliff Linedecker was a chief writer for Weekly World News back then.

"It was just really shocking to everybody," he said. "I swear if they were going to pick out the nicest guy, it was Bobby Stevens."

Many questions linger. Whoever laced envelopes with anthrax in a white powder, turning them into deadly weapons, remains on the loose. The building where Stevens and Blanco were exposed to the toxin remains under quarantine. It is the only building hit with anthrax, including federal buildings in Washington, D.C., other media outlets in New York and mail facilities in New Jersey, that's still lifeless. But memories of what happened are vivid.

Dr. Jean Malecki, director of the Palm Beach County Health Department, was giving a seminar on biological threats just weeks after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks when she took a call from Dr. Larry Bush, an infectious disease specialist at JFK Medical Center in Atlantis.

He told her about a patient with an unusual condition that looked like anthrax. She sent a sample to the state and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for further testing.

"Nobody believed me at the time," Malecki said in a recent interview.

The test came back positive. Even so, no alarms went off. Stevens was an avid outdoorsman just back from vacation and could have come in contact with the deadly bacteria naturally. It wasn't until samples taken from the AMI building came back positive for anthrax the Sunday before Columbus Day that Malecki and others realized the magnitude.

"We knew then it was a terrorist event," she said.

Malecki quarantined the building that night. She, Boca Raton Mayor Steven Abrams, and current and former AMI employees described the turmoil of the next few weeks. Public health officials put thousands on antibiotics as precautions. No one was sure what was happening, how it happened or where to turn to for much needed answers.

"It was just scary," said Alissa Marks, a former AMI editorial assistant. "Nobody knew anything."

Abrams called his father, a rheumatologist, in the middle of the night to ask about the poison lurking in town.

"We had no information whatsoever about anthrax," Abrams said. "Even the medical people had outdated information."

Blanco, 78, learned of his exposure to anthrax while watching TV news from his hospital bed. Hundreds of people waited in long lines for hours under the hot sun and in downpours for medicine and to have their noses swabbed, checking for anthrax. Linedecker, 75, fainted waiting in line for Cipro, an antibiotic. The pills made Marks ill by the fourth day and she switched to penicillin injections for 56 straight days.

National and international media descended on Boca Raton. Abrams worked to keep city residents calm. Emergency personnel responded to more than 900 calls that were hoaxes, Malecki said. They had to figure out a way to keep from contaminating themselves and others on the fly, just in case a call was the real thing.

"People were afraid to open their mail," Malecki said.

It went on for weeks.

"Every day was a new nightmare," Abrams said.

Those days are unforgettable for those who lived through them.

Linedecker, now a freelance writer and author, said changes at the tabloids after the attack cost him his job. The changes were going to happen anyway, he said. "But the anthrax sort of speeded things up," he said.

Marks, who now works in a doctor's office and a nutrition store, said that while it was "horrible at the time," good things happened to her as a result. Working in the disarray after the attacks gave her confidence to handle new experiences.

She took on more responsibility and received several promotions, eventually becoming a manager.

Abrams, who was in his first year as mayor, said that in the aftermath city staff, residents, businesses and public safety workers felt besieged. The attacks brought the community together. And that unity started to spill into other aspects of governing, he said. In fact, one of his proudest achievements as a third-term mayor has been changing the political tone in Boca Raton, he said. "A turning point of that cohesion could well have been that [anthrax] episode," Abrams said.

Malecki said she has become more introspective and grown spiritually since the attacks. She worked closely with the Stevens family and held forums for AMI employees.

"It was very, very clear to me that these events are not just physical in nature," she said.

Now, she thinks public health officials should provide mental health and spiritual services and take a more human approach.